It had been a very rough last few weeks for the death knight.

Between consorting with the Celestine, Obsidian, to meeting and doing the same with her sister, Belial, he had been drawn into an intricate webbing of subterfuge and politco game-playing. Yet these games were played not by mortal men, whom he would already have enough of a trouble with in that arena -- but by the powers of the Above and Below themselves. It was enough to make a man quail in abject horror.

Jodiah Ayreg was not just any man, though. As for himself, he merely flinched, set his jaw, and went about doing what he needed to do.

We... we need to kill something. Soon.

From Mr. Howe's temptations (You can choose to be her keeper if that is your greatest desire, Jodiah..), to Jack's quiet sort of grinding in (You will not win her, nor steal her away), he had grown a dark mood of late. A darkness only teasingly hidden away while in the arms of his cherished Obsidian, or his cherished Belial.

Yet even that, too, had consequences.

The color of a cloudless noonday's sky had taken itself upon him into his eyes. The brilliant, inhuman green of his iris remained -- that much was simply natural -- but surrounding and overwhelming was the constant glow of the azure. Their power flooded into him, and locked within with the substance known only as Midnight Tears.

Yet everything came crashing down.

Hard.

It was a pleasant fiction, perhaps, the two sisters. But how could the Divine truly be with a mortal? Belial had ended their trysts quite abruptly, and after finding solace in Obsidian's arms for a time, he decided to end theirs, as well. It's better that way for everyone.

Jack neededn't feel so threatened.

Belial might be appeased.

Obsidian would not be torn between him and Jack.

Everyone was going to be happy. Except for Jodiah Ayreg. Fortunatly, he is a man accustomed to pain and hardship, and so he suffers quietly in his solitude.

Am'thyst... why did you have to soften my heart?

He was growing weary and tired of Rhy'Din, and the constant flux and pass of power and politics, of monsters that charge into the Red Dragon to step on Icer, and flee just as quickly. Of the lesbian vampire elves rubbing upon each other lewdly, wearing clothes more suitable for welcoming lovers in private than for public discourse.

And worse -- he was a bloody Lord again.

Taiva was a small enough estate, true, and he decided after meeting with the local seneschal that -- while he might be able to do the job if he bent his mind and his will toward it deeply enough -- the man Alysia had left in charge of that manse would yet be the most respectable choice. Though he was pleased to learn that there was a fine wine orchard there, and would make it a point to instruct the seneschal -- a heavyset man named Dulmor -- to begin renovating the fields immedieatly. If Ayreg was going to be in command of this... Taiva ...then it would be self-reliant. As it stood, the two men and single woman in the emply of the "estate" were all recieving payment from greater Rhilshen.

That must stop. Not for any sake of wishing to come to odds with Alysia, of course, but simply that Taiva was not in Rhilshen. It was in Rhy'Din. And if Rhilshen should fall to the power of the Twilight?

He would do what he could to prevent that, of course. His time spent here in Rhy'Din had grown long, and stale, and full of.. heartache. He would not weep again, though, and he would not be weak. Nor would he be bitter, or brooding. More than usual, in any case.

Burn your eyes out, Am'thyst. Why did you have to die?

He wanted to return to Rhilshen then, and take up a more permanent residence in the quarters she offered him in the Fortress. He could survive the grinding dull of court life to stand at Alysia's side if he could survive the far-more-droning monotone of voices in the background of the Red Dragon. Lovers and rivals, enemies and friends, drinkers and seducers all plying their trades and skills one upon the other. But never him.

There was, after all, almost nothing left for him here at all.

He had been wearing his clockwork armor - showcasing it for a possible patron of the Dragon's Breath - and would be out of it and back into far more comfortable clothes. As he neared the door to Room Three of the Red Dragon, his nose twitched and he caught scent of something... foul.

Something dead.

Brackish water, pooled outside the door. The door itself... slightly ajar.

Leaving the helmet to the side, he eased inside his room, glowing cerulean eyes quickly raking across to find the cause and source of this interloper.

And when he found him? When he looked upon the man, it made his skin crawl. He recognized him, of course. The swallow features, the ebon-black hair, the pale greenish twinge of skin... it was a face he had not seen in an Age. Not since the fall of the Great City, when three young and idealistic paladins were killed, turned to the shadow, and reborn into the machines of anger, of hatred, and taint.

Jodiah's voice was not warm. It was not welcoming. It was like dead leaves, burning. The harsh rasp of a file grinding roughly over bone, tearing away at flakes and flakes.

"You!!" he nearly shouted.

Jodiah Ayreg's jaw set, his face twisting into a harrowing scowl. Rage erupted into his heart again, and he had to fight down the urge to throw himself at the other death knight. "Little brother." Once Corlagon had been the older of the two (and eldest of the three combined). Part of his trade-off to the Nihil was immortality. So he remained the age he was, even as Ayreg himself aged and lingered.

"The Destroyer serves the Nihil, perhaps, Corlagon. The Scourge of Worlds is gone. He has wracked this world once, and long ago. That man is dead."

Throwing his head back, Corlagon laughs maliciously, his shoulders shaking to the tune of grinding metallic plates. "He is not dead, you old fool! The Scourge of Worlds is alive inside of you. Do you not remember!? Do you not recognize the violence inside of you!? Do you not see the hate that bubbles in your soul!?"

Sword-arm dropped to his left hip, gripping the hilt of his icon-etched warsword. The runeblade made by his hands shortly after rising, bearing the symbols of the Nihil upon its blade.

"That man... is dead."

"That man can yet be reborn!!"

"No, Corlagon. No!!"

Garen Corlagon opened his iron-bound fist, dropping the sundered head of the page to the ground with a splash of foul water. He turned and -- squished.

"The Nihil have charged me with bringing you back to the fold. Or with killing you, should that fail. Last chance, Scourge of Worlds. Live in their name, or die in their name?"

He squished?

"You're the one who attacked Obsidian..."

"And others, Scourge of Worlds. And so many others. I do believe one of them was..." he turned his head, that malicious grin spreading his scarred face again. "...Am'thyst, was it?"

The death knight -- Jodiah Ayreg -- launched himself forward at the other. A kind of self-posesssed smirk twisted upon the death knight's -- Garen Corlagon's -- face. Soulsteel amor was several times more powerful, more rigid, more solid than a standard suit of steel plates. Thrakan armor went even beyond the norma soulsteel.

An iron-bound fist, ending in cold, black overlapping sheets of metal inlaid with strips of human flesh, swept up and away, batting Ayreg's downward-arcing blade away with an impunity and arrogance only one of the Nihilian death knights could have. If the Thrakan armor held just over his forearm, the bracer, could deflect a full-on, dead-to-rights swing... imagine, if you will, what the breastplate could do.

Jodiah Ayreg stumbled away, nearly knocked off his balance from the total change of direction. The pain in his knee twinged again, but the clockwork armor he wore supported and strengthened his body. The servos clicked and the gears ground, and there was the faint, white puff of steam erupting from beneath the right pauldron out of the carefully concealed vent.

Corlagon laughed. "Look at you! A weak and pathetic old man. How far has the mighty fallen, Scourge of Worlds? You were the most favored of the Nihil! And you, little brother, you have wasted it all. Thrown it away on mortal persuits."

"And you, Corlagon?" Turning to the sound of clinking hammers somewhere inside his suit of clockwork armor, Ayreg sneers. "You're nothing more than the next Bad Guy that will tarnish this place, and be forgotten within a fortnight. What have you done, hm?"

"Surely you got my message?"

"Oh, I did. But it was easily cleaned up, and the townsfolk shrugged and moved about their business." It was a bluff. There were quite a few genuinly disturbed by the message written in death, but Jodiah Ayreg was not going to give Garen Corlagon any advantage - real or percieved. "I wonder. Did you step on Icer when you were coming up the stairs? That does seem to be the benchmark for any new villain. Beating on that poor little dragon."

"I preferred to use your precious Ancient's head to hammer in loose nails on the bar. Enough talk, Scourge of Worlds! It is clear you have made your decision. Come -- time to meet your reaper."

As Corlagon's hand dipped to the swordhilt at his side and began its slow withdrawal, Jodiah Ayreg lurched forward again. His hand slammed down onto the pommel, earning him a wide-eyed stare from the other death knight. Ayreg turned sharply on his heel, military-snap, and with a spin to build momentum, brought the skull-shaped pommel of his Nihilian blade up into Corlagon's chin.

As the man in the Thrakan armor stumbled back so far he slammed into the wall, he did manage to draw forth his sword. Ayreg's heart could have sank.

The only thing that would have made it more dangerous as if it were true soulsteel. It was not. Soulsteel was crafted in Stygia, generally, as the Soulfire Stones do not exist anywhere else naturally (save the one he has secreted away here on the mortal world, for when he crafts soulstock). A weapon made of soulsteel does not wound - it kills. That's the only thing that could have made it worse.

The man's blade was a dark, dark gray. Not quite black, like soulsteel, but a dark color nonetheless. Ayreg recognized it for what it was, and true: Darksteel. Crafted in Malfeas, darksteel was used in the making of weaponry. In the Iron City, they had known the weapons as Stygiansbane. It was a good name - spectres armed with darksteel weaponry could not only utterly destroy a wraith (as the wraiths did the spectres, with their soulforged weaponss), but the wraith died in great pain.

The touch of darksteel broke shavings off of the blade; too little and too small to truly affect the make-up of the weapon save after hundreds of years of near-constant use, but the victim would not care about the composition or structure of the weapon. The shavings would work in tandem, noodling together as they wound aimlessly through the body, shredding apart muscles and sinew in the tiniest pin-prick sizes. Not enough to, perhaps, truly kill someone with -- but it was a decidedly unpleasant feeling.

Or so he had heard.

Black Saa entered into Corlagon's eyes then, so many and so thick that his eyes nearly turned as black as the Dead Eyed man; nearly as black as the Voice of the Nihil. Only Garen Corlagon was no Voice to be heard.

He was the Fist, to be felt.

It took a great deal of effort, but Jodiah Ayreg's eyes filled with black Saa as well. Only one, a single speck of black moving almost unseen. How many was not a measure of the power you pulled in, but rather how long and how often you did so. It is said when the eyes are completly shrouded in blackness, then you will be well and truly insane. A mere puppet on strings, a posessed thing even, to the great, dark masters of Malfeas.

Let us dance, you and I.

They moved forward as if anticipating each other, death knight met death knight with the sound of clashing steel, and the blurred movements of their bodies enhanced by death magics.

Jodiah Ayreg screamed, full-throated, as the Balefire wrapped itself around his body like liquid metal. He could feel every hair on his body as if they were tiny daggers, he could feel his skin ripping, shredding, cracking and peeling off his aged, battle-scarred form.

Blackness, darkness, go away

He screamed in the anguish that the Balefire caused, melting him into his base parts like so much steel and mithril mixed together in a fluid state and flattened to form an alloy.

He screamed in the torment of the burn, like a pagan witch of old lashed to the stake with the touch of the fire meant to cleanse their soul.

Revive myself in light of day

He screamed in the agony of memory, of every hateful and spiteful thing he did in the name of the Nihil as they were scorched and burned. The lines and ties and links that the dark lords of Malfeas had, blackened with death, shriveling from the power of Balefire.

He screamed in the pain, his body writhing, rocking back onto his heels and his arms flung wide. It felt like someone skinning him alive, drawing and quartering him, evisceration with a spoon.

Searing, blinding, purest light...

He screamed with the suffering of those he had caused over the years. How many senseless murders? How many worthless acts of violence against the innocent, or the weak, or the defenseless?

He screamed with the affliction, the malaise of the damned. His soul inverted so long ago, twisted and evil, and to die and be reborn. He screamed, and he screamed, until his throat was dry, until his tongue wanted to fall off, until his lungs were well and truly empty.

Banish demons from the night

He fell to his knees, gasping for air as if held under water for too long. His skin was not stripped. His flesh was not scorched. His blade, Nihillian in dedication, was ruined - a smoldering husk laying upon the floor beside him.

The light. It's there.

And he was clean.

The darkness... gone...

Blessedly clean.

The light... so bright... it burns...

"And now... the Scourge of Worlds is truly dead. You are nothing more now than a weak and powerless, defenseless old man; crippled and broken. I will enjoy making this last as long as possible -- Jodiah Ayreg."

Garen Corlagon's lips curled, sneering, triiumphant. He raised his weapon, and stalked forward.

Garen Corlagon paused as Jodiah Ayreg stumbled back up to his feet, taking a few steps back as if to give him some space. The Destroyer and the Scourge of Worlds might have despised each other, might be trying to kill each other, but this was a battle that Corlagon had been waiting all of his life for. He was not going to lessen the glory with a truncated blow to the broken old man while he was trying to stand up.

So.

A sword of ice.

He heard of these before, of course, and they usually had names. Frostmourn. Darkice. Coldfury. Frost Brand. What this one's name was he did not know, and did not need to. He wasn't even fearful for a moment. Black Saa entered his eyes again, nearly blackening them into solid orbs of pitch at the blizzard of energy coursing his body. The power of The Nihil -- the magic of death -- fluxed inside of him, zinging him with vigerous energy. He was stronger. Faster. Smarter, even. The power of the Saa could not be denied -- even the Ancient seemed unprepared for it, which is likely how he was able to throttle this creature so soundly.

A creature The Nihil feared.

Ayreg snarled, leaping forward. The Nihil had been burned out of him, though; there were no Saa in the other man's eyes.

Corlagon moved with nearly the speed of a blur. He made Jodiah Ayreg look old; look slow. He nearly made Ayreg look stiff as a stone as he flowed around him, knocking away that icy blade and delivering cuts and attacks faster than the man could even attempt to parry away.

A thrust by Ayreg was stepped around lightly, almost easily. Corlagon gripped his arm, yanking him once to throw off his balance, and then drove the darksteel tip of his sword down between two plates of his mechanized armor.

"AUUUGH!!"

Corlagon sneered, "Pathetic." He released the former Scourge of Worlds, shoving him forward. He craddled his sword-arm like it were a babe, yet somehow he managed to find the strength to lift that icy blade again. This only made Corlagon's sneer turn into a smirk.

Ayreg swung low, bringing the sword up into an arc. It was stepped away from, then back into once it had passed him. One hand kept the old man's hands (and that new sword he had drawn) high, while the other drove darksteel blade into his midsection.

The sound Jodiah made was... not even describable. "Do you yield yet, Ayreg? Do you acknowledge the stronger? The Destroyer is greater than the Scourge of Worlds ever was!!" Darksteel blade withdrawn and raised, he smashes the back of iron-bound fist clutching at its hilt across Ayreg's jaw, sending the man spiraling off across the floor toward the bed.

His weapon went the other way, toward the door.

Pieces of clockwork armor hung off of Jodiah Ayreg's beaten, bloodied, broken frame. He shuddered, trying to push himself up even as his body bled out his life onto the floor, mixing with the brackish black/red mixture that was scattered about everywhere. The room stunk of death. Garen Corlagon saw Jodiah reach forward, beneath the bed.

"I grow tired of these games with you, Ayreg." His voice held triumph. He knew he was going to win. Jodiah Ayreg was a broken old man, now, without even the little lingering ability inside of him to draw upon The Nihil for support. He stalked forward. "Admit it or not, I am your better. I only hope The Plaguebringer shows mercy upon you, and turns you into a Nephwrack. Then I will get to continue torturing you for eons. Or, perhaps, you would make a fine soulforged paperweight on my desk as I orchestrate a war to slaughter thousands. I have felt the cold embrace of death. I have witnessed the horrors of the abyss. This, Jodiah Ayreg..."

Garen Corlagon reached down, grabbing the man by the back of the gorget protecting the neck. Nihilian strength pulsed in his body, allowing him to fully lift the other man from the floor clear up off his feet. "...this will prove, once and for all, that The Destroyer should have always been the figurehead of The Nihil. Malfeas awaits you now, for you are POWERLESS against me!!"

Jodiah Ayreg's face, smattered in blood and brackish water, held upon his thin lips the slightest look of... amusement.

He held something in his hand, then, and jabbed it forward to press it against the breastplate of the Thrakan armor. He thumbed the activator just over the handguard, smiling now as the grip adjusted to fit his hand automatically.

A heavy blaster. Belial's other gift from the Blood's armory...

"Never assume. I cross-trained, asshole."

He squeezed the trigger, just as Belial had taught him how.

Author's note: Strong language. I blame Brian :P

Garen Corlagon appeared from the stairs. A man with mussed black hair, his skin was sallow, and he sloshed with his movements. The activity in the common room of the Red Dragon was quiet, but wary. Many were staring upwards, and dust scattered in the air.

So. His and Ayreg's little dance of death was not unnoticed.

Blackened snake-plate Thrakan armor was shattered in several places, burnt with the bolts from the heavy blaster Belial had gifted to Ayreg, and equal parts blood and nasty, brackish water oozed out of his body.

Despite his injuries and the holes in his body, though, Garen Corlagon was not a fool. He blended as well as he could, almost instantly. Lucius DeAuster was almost directly in front of him, though. He would have to be circumnavigated if Corlagon was going to...

"MURDERER!!" A shout came from behind. Jodiah Ayreg. Those words rolled out of his throat raspily, low and grating even with their volume. "STOP HIM!!"

Ayreg stumbled down the steps, reaching the landing of the common room and leaned against the rail for support. Tip of that icy-bladed sword pressed into the ground, and he was using it ostensibly as a cane. Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, he might have realized that this was Rhy'Din. Who cares about murder, after all? Jodiah's hand lifted, pointing directly at Corlagon weakly.

"PIXIEKILLER!!"

Elsewhere in the room, Victoria, the Seer appeared, bursting in through the door. She moved as if drawn here by the voices that spoke in her head, flailing her arms wildly in the air, wild-eyed, and moving at a dash. "Firefly! Firefly!"

"Tha' be him!" Obsidian said from behind the bar. She lifted a hand to point angrily at Corlagon. "He killed Amthy!"

Lucius DeAuster paused in his trip toward the stairs. He had caught sight of the man descending already, but hearing the words from Jodiah's cry of murder and pixiekilling caused him to spring into action. Battlegauntlets extended their wrist-mounted blades with a soft 'thunkt.'

Alysia Skye had been in conversation this night, actually, standing off to the side of the bar with a dry smile toward the other bartender, Chris. She turned slowly as she heard Ayreg's voice, those crimson eyes of her taking in his beaten and battered form.

And then she saw Corlagon.

Others did not leap directly into the fray. Sakura gasped as the bloodied man staggered down the steps, shaking them beneath his feet with each leap. She let off a feminine squeal of fear as Jodiah came thundering down after him, looking even more a mess, and screaming murder at the top of his lungs.

Time for subtelty at an end. The Destroyer exploded outward, slamming his body against the growling and now-charging Lucius, bashing into him like a mountain. Still, DeAuster slashed out at him as well as he could in the fall, bouncing once with the force he struck into the ground with.

Wyheree moved into a more defensive posture, stepping in front of Sakura and another. The temperature around her lowered, and a few stray glasses of booze left unattended on the bar frosted over.

But others were not quiet, now. Icer, the resident dragon and mascot of the Inn itself, rose quickly to her taloned feet. She snarled, lunging forward, jaws wide at The Destroyer as he made his way toward the exit now. Corlagon's retreat ended suddenly as the dragon snapped for him.

With gritted teeth and spilling brackish water, he turns quickly and rolls over the top of a table, landing with the harsh sound of a metallic grind of armor on the other side. The same table was grabbed and lifted lightly, almost easily, and brought down onto Icer's bony brow ridge.

Corlagon would be no easy meat.

He was The Destroyer!

He was the Fist of the Nihil!!

From afar, Alysia framed a small orb of roiling blue flame -- coldfire and sent it spiraling toward him. Black Saa echoed across his eyes, so many and so thick as to be a blizzard of inky pitch. Injuries had already started to mend themselves sinew by sinew, but still he staggered a step back. Thrakan armor, even broken, still almost protected him entirely from magical attack -- coldfire was wheedled away, leaving only the physical force of the blow (small as it was; a thrown ball, perhaps) to strike at his gaping, bloodied chest.

"Oh Gods!" Obsidian grabbed up Jack Scot's hand, rushing out from behind the bar and toward the steps towards Ayreg.

Another man entered the room from the back -- Brian Ravenlock -- blinking at the din and chaos and confusion that erupted suddenly in the wake of the Destroyer's arrival. He bellowed his confusion, "What the fuck!?"

"Manon!" Small feet were quick, hellbent on their destination. she was for the stairs, and Sid and Scot and Ayreg. She whispered as she ran, arms outstretched to the saftey provided by the Ancient and the Mystery. "The One in his arms.."

Even Charlotte Ravenlock appeared, shortly behind her husband, Brian. Mouth agape, she blinked wide-eyed at the battle that was about to be joined. It was her husband, Brian Ravenlock, that drew his blade -- Tyrsis -- flashing brightly into his hand, as he ran full-tilt toward the others.

The Destroyer roared, kicking a snake-scale armored leg out to demolish some poor chair in his rage -- right up until Icer's jaws closed down tight, crushing draconic maw down to his leg, crushing that Thrakan armor like a suit of tin foil.

In hindsight, bashing a dragon over the head with a table, even one crafted of heavy oak, was probably not a good idea...

He roared again, iron-bound fists dropping quickly and repeatedly against the dragon's brow. "You cannot stop me, insects! Back!"

Another added. Tasha Oberon of the Bloods lifted her wrist-mounted crossbow, releasing a blessed bolt. It flew true, that bolt finding a lodging in the side of his throat. Corlagon merely sneered and continued to snarl, though he was kept in the jaws of the dragon, Icer, prevented from fleeing.

Somewhere else in the room, someone shouted. By now, Corlagon couldn't even tell who'se voice belonged to whom, though. "Get the non-combatants outta' the way!"

He flailed wildly, his ineffective beating of the dragon's thick skull continuing in the furious crushing of iron fist-wraps. "It will NOT be this way, worms! Release me now, or FACE MY WRATH!!"

But even his words of warning did little to stop the enraged dragon. Her jaws clamped tight, imbedding deep into his leg. She jerked her head back. Twice. Then again. On the third, a loud, audible, and quite disgusting snap was heard as bone was pulled apart like tissue paper.

Even now, though, the Destroyer would not give these lesser beings the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

Using Icer as a stool of sorts, a leaping Brian landed on her back. He took a second to make sure his position was stable, and then lifted his arms to swing Tyrsis hard at Corlagon. The weapon arced wide, whizzing as it cut the air and came down into his shoulder.

Corlagon roared ever on, pulling Brian down by the closer wrist. It was a sudden burst of movement that happened -- one second he was atop Icer's back, the next he was pulled close by the massive and famously strong Garen Corlagon. Solid and scarred forehead met the smaller man's in a crushing headcrash, and Brian was released to fall away to the side.

"Oh wow..." Tasha said, dumbfounded, from across the room. "Ain't ever hit one of those before. Whatever "it" is anyway..."

Alysia Skye had been standing in thoughtful judgement after the unraveling of her coldfire. Now, though, that humming, black-bladed sword Angylsblud found its way into her hands, whispering to her, willing her. She made her way across the room to the growing throng of people engaged in the brawl; cold and emotionless.

From behind, Lucius DeAuster attacked again. Arms tangled with Corlagon's own water-sloshing arms, pinning him back. The man was strong -- too strong to be human or elf -- and in the back of his mind Corlagon felt a certain degree of familiarity with the power he struggled against. But it was Lucius that had the upper hand in position, and even as a sickening crunch of skull bashing chin from a thrown-back head connected, even as he flailed and flexed and battered at the male with fists and elbows and spiked armplates, Lucius' hold remained firm.

He was starting to be rather like a pig stretched out for dinner on a farm.

He would not perish this way! He was Garen Corlagon! He was the eternal one!

Staggering back to his feet, Brian Ravenlock saw Lucius struggling to hold The Destroyer firm. He grinned in his own way. "Pour it on!" was his cry, lifting Tyrsis again.

Even as he was -- on the ropes, as it were -- the power of the Destroyer could not be denied. Muscles flexed as the Saa flowed, a quick twist, a backward arch, and the surge of muscles out against the man who would restrain him. All he had to do was break free. All he needed was a sword; a dagger, even! Give him a length of steel, and he would show all of these misfits what true power was!

...But he was held firm. With the crossbow bolt still buried in his throat, Corlagon's voice was hollow, and nearly as raspy as Ayreg's had always been. "The Nihil will annihilate you all!! You will ALL be destroyed! Your souls belong to the Malfeans all of you!!"

Somewhere, there was an animalistic snarl. It sounded like a wolf, or some kind of dog. A coyote, maybe... but Corlagon could not be distracted now!

Brian leapt again onto Icer to gain the advantage of height. He brought that weapon down again, thrusting it down into The Destroyer's body. He acted as a man who had nothing to lose. Perhaps he, amongst them all, knew that this was kill or be killed.

Perhaps he appreciated the danger the Destroyer presented...

"...no room, damn it all." Alysia muttered, raising the soul-sword for an artless but careful slash through the crowd. Soulforged steel meets soulforged armor, and Angylsblud embeds itself into his midsection. His body jerks once, held fast by Lucius on one end and Icer on the other. Alysia from one flank, Brian from the top.

He writhed even so, still, struggling to be free -- but his attempts were sluggish, and weak. Blood and water spilled in equal amounts, and he felt the anchors of his soul stir at the touch of the soulforged blade. It was only the power of The Nihil coursing his body that kept him alive... for now.

"It... cannot... end... this way... "

Icer snarled again, jerking her head back fiercly. Corlagon screamed, then, his leg ripping off at the knee with a renewed deluge of sinew, blood, bone, and foul, fetid water.

With elements of both singsong and ferocity, Victoria's voice came from behind the bar where she hid. She sounded bold. Empowered. "Your soul for the Firefly!"

DeAuster's growl climbed in tone as he fought Corlagon, pitting daemonic strength against the Saa of the Destroyer. His eyes widened as the other forced his arms out, but his grip was kept true and sure, especially now as the man was weakening. Blood and a cracked jaw allowed the man's own inner Beast to emerge, fangs snapping out at any bare flesh he could find.

Suddenly, from below the Inn's floor, vines climbed to break through the floorboards. They reached upward, wrapping swiftly around his battling, struggling, flailing form. The stench of sulfur and molten rock rises in steam from the base of thoes vines.

But the former Scourge of Worlds was quiet until now. Clutching his chest and leaning on the ice-bladed sword, Jodiah Ayreg's thin lips twitched into a kind of satisfied smile. His voice was soft, barely there in the din. "End him. And let his masters decide what judgement is best to reward failure."

A something brushed against his legs, DeAuster noticed now the tendrils arcing upward, and he pulled back, snarling and cursing softly. Alysia Skye was not so quick. Minutely aware of the insidious vines taking root around the chaos and the hissing dragon, she wrestles the soulsword free from the Destroyer's armor. Fiery eyes became hazy at the blade's taste of the brackish 'blood' oozing from Corlagon.

Armor and flesh ripped apart by talons and teeth, body engulfed in ropy tendril of vine. Equal parts blood and brackish water erupt from his body out of every opened hole and gash and tear -- but the power of the Saa was...

...defeated. Garen Corlagon thrashed one more time, screaming, "NOOO!!" before it pitted out into a dull gurgle. A death rattle. Seconds later, his body erupted in a geyser of blood and flesh and foul water and tissue as the vines tuged and tightened, ripping him apart limb from limb, showering Alysia, DeAuster, Ravenlock, and Icer in the putresecent mix.

Alysia stumbled back, clutching her hand to her belly as if nauseated.

"Ewwww.." Tasha made a face at the sight of the man collasping in on itself with that nasty water spreading and just grabs for her bottle of soda and turns to rest her back against the bar, away from the sight.

For Obsidian, it was too much with all the overload and she sank back with Victoria in her arms to sag against the rear counter. She whispered softly, "For ye, sissypix.."

Brian Ravenlock twisted the grip on his hilt, sword held low once more, and he breathed heavily and watched on, as if expecting the pieces of Corlagon to come back together. "Is.. it over?"

The defender, Wyheree, lifted her hand to her mouth, her color even paler than normal at the sight. "Eww!"

Victoria lifted her arm, dainty hand coiling around Sid's arm, just at her elbow. "Kept his promise..." she whispered.

Obsidian nodded, looking to the coyote that had stood as faithful sentinel beside her, and had been the access and conduit for her to summon those vines that quickly began to receed back into the earth beneath the Red Dragon. "Scottie..." she heaved, "Jodiah. Please."

The coyote took off then, bounding for the stairs where Jodiah was. He became a blur, tawni fur erupting into color, and four legs became two as he ran.

Jodiah Ayreg slumped a bit more, groaning softly. Still, he would observe tradition. "So passes Garen Corlagon, the Destroyer.." His voice had a strange tone of formality to it, but he doubled over again, falling then to his knees with a soft groan.